In many organisations, business and IT sit on opposite sides of a chasm. On one side, executives and planners create enterprise strategy and assign business unit objectives. Then they look to IT for technology enablement at a cost and level of service that achieve those objectives.

In the Spotlight In Search of IT Governance Webcast Series Knowledge - the path to IT governance and trust Bloor Research, March 2006 (PDF: 169KB)

On the other side, IT creates and delivers services and technologies that often miss the mark because it is so difficult to show how those services and technologies achieve business goals.

To measure and assert the value of IT to the business, IT departments need to:

• Reduce costs (through improved efficiency and productivity) to ensure the financial performance of IT.
• Continuously ensure the quality of services and high customer satisfaction.
• Show that IT investments are increasing the business value of IT.
• Be innovative in the use of corporate information assets while managing risk and minimising the cost of delivery.

To accomplish these challenging goals, you can use SAS IT Intelligence to measure and optimise your entire IT operation. SAS IT Intelligence has been built with many IT best practices in mind, namely the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and other process and governance frameworks. Frameworks that can help enhance your efforts to align IT to business goals. Specifically, SAS IT

Intelligence provides capabilities for:

• Resource Optimisation (Download PDF) - Using SAS IT Intelligence for Resource Optimisation lets you maintain a holistic view of all IT assets and accurately forecast resource requirements. In short, Resource Optimisation helps you acquire and deploy the right resources at the right time. You can also reduce your overall facilities through a process of "right-sizing" your IT infrastructure. Resource Optimisation is primarily enabled by SAS IT Resource Management.
  
  
• Service Optimisation - Establish a service catalogue with a clear and concise view of performance to help measure the quality of service to each line of business. SAS lets you ensure that service targets are achieved, monitored and documented, and it provides a mechanism for negotiating levels of service such that both parties have a clearer view of responsibilities and specific service targets. Most importantly, Service Optimisation lets you understand the relationships between IT resources and business applications, so you can be confident in the proper alignment between IT and business. Service Optimisation is primarily enabled by SAS IT Service Level Management.
  
  
• Financial Optimisation - This capability lets you cut costs without harming operational performance. You can also use IT data to identify opportunities for cost reduction and process improvement. Even determine accurate chargeback prices for services delivered to internal customers. To provide these capabilities, SAS lets you measure the cost to deliver any process that uses IT resources. With knowledge of costs, you can optimise expenditures and evaluate what-if scenarios. SAS IT Intelligence for Financial Optimisation is a customised solution enabled primarily by SAS Activity-Based Management.
  
  

Performance metrics provide insight into resources, services and financial data to enable fact-based decisions that will reduce total cost of ownership and ensure quality of service. Business metrics can be tracked as well, which help show the success of IT. Such metrics can include profit per transaction and cost per user. The IT scorecard is primarily enabled by SAS Strategic Performance Management.

Built on the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform
The above capabilities are only part of SAS' value for IT departments. SAS IT Intelligence is built on the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform, a powerful, unique platform that includes enterprise-level business intelligence, unmatched data integration, powerful storage for intelligence data, and the industry's most sophisticated analytics. This platform uses the optimised infrastructure of your organisation to deliver crucial information to every corner of your organisation, from finance to marketing and HR.